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ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—Monitronics will have more than 600 dealers and 1 million accounts when it completes the $487 million acquisition, announced today, of super-regional security company Security Networks, the 14th largest residential alarm monitoring company in the United States.

In the past couple of weeks, Monitronics has announced new benefits for active members of AARP and AAA, offering benefits both to members signing up for services with Monitronics as well as members who are current customers.

"These partnerships are set up uniquely utilizing various co-marketing strategies to make their respective member aware of the value and benefits that Monitronics can provide," Frank Guido, Monitronics' CMO, told Security Systems News in an email interview.

"These initiatives were started many months ago, but has been a strategic focus to fuel growth opportunities with high quality, well recognized partners," Guido said. "We are targeting channels that are synergistic to our business and the potential partner’s business. We are selectively targeting similarly partnerships that provide win-win-win opportunities for customers first, our partner and Monitronics.

The company announced its partnership with AAA on Aug. 23, which named Monitronics as “the AAA-branded provider for professionally installed residential security monitoring in the organization's Ohio valley and Mid-Atlantic regions, which covers 11 states, including OH, KY, KS, IN, VA, WV, MD, DE, CT, PA, NJ, plus Washington DC.”

"AAA Alliance is a large regional club for AAA with a member base of over 5.5 [million] members. These members also have excellent attributes and are similar to our base," Guido said.

Brian St. Leger, managing director, discount partnerships and business for AAA Club Alliance, said in a prepared statement, "We are excited to partner with Monitronics to provide a valuable service at an exclusive discounted rate to our members.

"We know our members are active, traveling and out enjoying the world and this will help bring them peace of mind while they're away from their home," St. Leger said in the announcement.

AAA members signing up with the company will get discounts on a specialized AAA package, while members who are already customers will be offered discounts on additional equipment.

AARP members who sign up with Monitronics will receive equipment and free activation “as well as $5 off their monthly monitoring fee,” the company said in an Aug. 11 announcement. Existing customers who are also AARP members will be offered discounts when they add on equipment in the future.

"AARP has a 38M member base and is highly respected brand. Their member base has many positive attributes and similarities to our customer base," Guido said. "Monitronics felt that it could provide AARP members with the best value proposition and service for security and automation. This was affirmed by AARP in the selection of Monitronics in their extensive RFP process."

How much overlap exists between these organizations' memberships and Monitronics' current customer base? "While there may be some overlap, these organization are vast and provide different avenues to reach new subscribers," Guido said.

ADT announced earlier this week that the Ring video doorbell is now available for its customers nationwide. While the Ring has made some noise in the smart doorbell category, there are many options to choose from when it comes to this first-line-of-defense product for homeowners.

Others who have had success with doorbell cameras include Vivint, Skybell and August, to name just a few.

As more and more consumers begin to embrace smart home products like the video doorbell, dealers are adding these devices to their security and home-automation offerings, and partnering and integrating with others to provide a complete home automation and security package.

For example, ADT customers can incorporate the Ring video doorbell as part of their ADT Pulse smart home security system and lock their door, turn on their lights, and activate their ADT security system directly within the Ring app, all while seeing who is at the door.

Similarly, Vivint’s Doorbell Camera, which won a 2016 Innovation Award from the Business Intelligence Group earlier this year, works with its smart home platform, so homeowners can engage in two-way conversations with visitors on their doorsteps from their mobile devices, while simultaneously using Vivint’s smart home technology to remotely unlock the front door, open the garage door, disarm their security system, for example.

On the supplier side, SkyBell, which was nominated for a CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award, has integrated with Nest, Amazon Echo, Honeywell, Alarm.com, Monitronics, Kwikset, Icontrol Networks and IFTTT, all in an effort to allow complete control of a homeowner’s security and smart home system.

And the August Doorbell Cam is part of the August Smart Home Access System, so all of the August Home products, along with its app, work together. August is also integrating with other companies, such as Honeywell, which recently integrated the August Smart Lock with its Total Connect 2.0 Remote Services platform.

For many homeowners, the video doorbell is their first-foray into smart home technology, and it is helping to drive the continued growth of other security cameras and smart home devices and apps.

DALLAS—Monitronics recently hired ADT’s former director and lead human resources business partner, Kelly Harris, to join the company as chief people officer, and also added two new directors of marketing.